The Eleven Films About Refugees You Need To See
They're less depressing than the real thing.
Children of Men (2006)
Naturally the definitive dystopian thriller of our time is a story about refugees. Before his career shot into orbit with Gravity, Alfonso Cuarón crafted this grimly beautiful masterpiece. It’s 2027, and humans are no longer able to reproduce; the UK has become a fascist state in which asylum seekers fleeing worldwide anarchy are hunted down and forced to live in vast offshore penal colonies. So in other words, it’s pretty realistic.
Clive Owen is a nihilistic shell of a man charged with protecting an African refugee (Clare-Hope Ashitey) and her seemingly miraculous unborn child. (The Christian iconography is not hard to spot, and entirely appropriate to the refugee theme.) Watch it for its brilliant screenplay and its phenomenal cinematography and action setpieces, but it’s the disturbing vision of our society that’ll stay with you.